


who holds the devil, let him hold him well, he hardly will be caught a second time

by missdulcerosea



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Being Homura Is Suffering, Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24150598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missdulcerosea/pseuds/missdulcerosea
Summary: (gift to insomnia_productions because i moved ao3 accounts - this is the pmmm / wheel of time fic i promised you, though slightly different! mwah)In a world where the Incubators experiment in the longevity of magical girls, and a world where a young girl makes a slightly different wish, Rand al'Thor discovers the horrors behind the mechanics of the Puella Magi, and has to help a young girl and her friends find their way back home.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. if i could have but one wish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Insomnia_Productions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insomnia_Productions/gifts).



The worst part, Lews Therin thinks, is the creature’s eyes. 

Expressionless, blank red eyes paired with an unchanging smile. He didn’t know what Kyuubey thought when he made his wish, and does not know what he thinks now as he bores into the earth. Once he wore the ring on his finger so that all the world could bear witness and see his status as a Puero Magus—defender of light, protector of the weak, who worked alongside Puella Magi to protect them from monsters they couldn’t comprehend.

They are the monsters. Always were, and soon enough Lews Therin will join their ranks.

He knew full well how much his Soul Gem would be corrupted when he sealed the Dark One away, watches the light drain away from it and fall dark. He doesn’t use a Grief Seed to change it—he doesn’t have any, and it’s not as though he has anything to go back to. There is no Ilyena, no family for him. The Incubators always knew it would come down to something like this, and he never questioned them. And he’s not going to prove them wrong.

The balance between hope and despair reaches zero at last. His Soul Gem shatters into pieces and morphs. Later on, the others will find Lews Therin—or the mangled, broken body of the once powerful and respected Puero Magi that was Lews Therin—lying crumpled on the ground. Dead.

A doppel spectre rises upward from his body, screaming and spreading its shadowy tendrils of arms into the air to blot out the sky.

_Faust. The dragon warlock with a vengeful nature. The warlock searches for something that he has lost but cannot remember, and drags all life of the world into his barrier. He will never find what he is looking for. The only way to defeat the warlock is to give him back what he had lost, or wish to be powerful enough to defeat him._


	2. jabberwocky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!  
> The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!  
> Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun  
> The frumious Bandersnatch!"
> 
> \- Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky

The balance between hope and despair always evens out at zero. Human girls become Puella Magi, Puella Magi kill and spawn witches. That is the way things always have been and will continue to be. The hourglass is turned over; the play begins again. Yet still, there is hope beyond despair.

Homura Akemi stumbles through the woods. The cold air makes goosebumps prickle her arms and every snap of a twig beneath her shoes makes her almost jump. Along the way, she’d stumbled and hurt her ankle—she’d managed to heal the wound and has time frozen, but doesn’t bother with her other scrapes and minor injuries. She knows about what lurks in the woods from her textbooks at school. Wolves. Bears. Animals with bristling fur and sharp teeth that could easily leave her dead were it not for her powers. But one question still lingers on Homura’s mind.

_Where am I?_

The last thing she remembers is lying limp in the ruins of a freshly toppled-over building, Madoka’s wish… then here. Now she struggles through the partly-lit foliage trying to find a way out. Mud oozes through her tights and shoes, dark hair matted and caked with dirt. Perhaps she will not die in battle against Walpurgisnacht, witch of all witches. No, maybe she will die alone and starving in these woods—

“No,” she tells herself. Her voice seems loud in the quiet of the woods. “I’m going to live. I have to keep going. I’m alive.”

_And maybe Madoka is, too._

* * *

Periwinkle sky greets Homura when she makes it into a clearing. She unfreezes time and stands at the border between forest and open fields, heaving for air. The scrape on her knee still stings. It reminds her a little of the countryside back at St. Claire’s: rolling hills stretching on across the horizon, lined with clumps of towering trees. But there is no tall building with a cross on its doorway, no gate that she can see anywhere with the name “St. Claire’s” emblazoned on it in brassy bold letters. 

It’s only at the edge of the woods, stumbling through the tall, pale green grass, that Homura realizes how _cold_ she is.

Gusts of wind make her hair ripple. She shivers with each step and can feel her fingers growing stiff and red. She’ll have to find some kind of shelter, she supposes, somewhere to stay until she figures out where she is. And then… 

And then?

_I guess I’ll have to find Madoka,_ she thinks. _If I can even find her. I don’t know what happened. And what if I can’t? What if I can’t find her and help her or…_

She’ll just keep going. Find shelter, find a way to live—

—And it occurs to Homura that this is the first time in a long, long while that she’s dared to think of herself.

She reaches down to twist the ring on her finger, to stare at the pale purple crescent-moon mark on her nail. It’s a reminder that though she is alone, she is not helpless. If she needs to, she can and will use her powers. She’s not the same sickly girl that was tossed in and out of the hospital, the girl who had nothing to lose but nothing to gain, either.

So Homura keeps walking. She does not know where she is going nor where she will end up. But anything is better than freezing to death or dying of hunger and thirst in the woods, isn’t it? And she _will_ find a way out. She always has.

“Hey!”

Homura finds that she’s standing on the other side of a dusty dirt road. There’s a silhouette tinted dark from the setting sun across from her that stumbles and skids on rock, grabbing the harness of what looks like a horse. Homura reminds herself that now she does not have anyone—No Madoka, no Kyuubey (though for that she can’t say she misses him, the creature that destroyed the life of someone she wants nothing more than to keep safe), nothing. So inhaling a little she steps forward across the road to see who’s calling out to her.

The owner of the voice is a tall young man, red hair framing his face. He’s pale-skinned, with a heavy cloak draped around his shoulders. He squints a little at Homura, scrutinizing her. Then when he sees her up close—the dried blood, her dirty torn-up clothes, dirt-streaked hair—his eyes go wide. Forgetting about the horse for a moment, he runs up to Homura. Then he starts to throw questions at her every which way.

“What happened?” He asks her, eyes skimming over the scraped knee still oozing red through her tights. “Who are you? Where are your parents? How did you get here?”

Homura stays quiet for a moment. 

Then she grabs hold of the boy around his waist and begins to sob: Deep, shuddering sobs that make her throat hurt and her chest feel like it might burst. To have someone older than her intervene beyond letting her know which pills she needs to take today, to have someone older than her that she can try to trust, to be so far away from home and Madoka and everyone _hurts._ It hurts her in a way that hasn’t hurt before. Shedoesn’t want to know what might happen next, and simultaneously despises herself for going a moment not thinking of the one person she’s supposed to keep safe and portect, even if that doesn’t apply now. She clings onto him and shakes, feeling the tears hot and wet on her face.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have asked you so many questions at once—I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine.” Homura’s voice is thick from crying. She buries her face in his shirt.

“I live not too far from here with my father. We can go home and clean up your injuries and get you clean clothes. We can figure out what happened later. Is that alright?”

Homura pulls away and nods. “Okay.”

* * *

It is a strange thing, to not have to test the limits of her body’s abilities to heal.

The red-haired boy—Rand, she learned is his name—takes her on the horse back to his house. His father is an old man with a weathered, pockmarked face and warm eyes. Homura perches on one one of the chairs and lets them put ointment that stings on her wounds and wrap her arms up with bandages, wiping off the blood and dirt that’s accumulated with a damp cloth. Tam helps her change into a simple gray tunic with brown pants—they don’t have any dresses that fit, those used to belong to his wife but she’s gone now.

_That means she’s probably dead,_ Homura thinks. _That’s what grown-ups usually mean when they say gone._

Now she sits with bandages wrapped around her wounded knees and arm by the fireplace, crackling and popping and flickering bright white-hot in the tiny house. 

“How does it feel?” Tam asks.

When Homura speaks she switches back to using the cold, curt voice she’s used so many times before. “It stings a little, but that’s normal. Otherwise I’m alright.”

“Good.”

She wraps herself up in one of the fleecy blankets Rand brought her, pulling up the heavy fabric to her chin as she coils up against the chair. That’s when the gears in her mind start to whir and click together, and she has an inkling of an idea about what she can do next. She has Madoka’s phone number—she can just call her and they’ll find a way to meet, and everything will be close to normal again.

“Do you have a phone I can use to call a girl I know?”

Rand scrunches his face up. “A what?”

“A phone. You know… what you use to call people.”

“As in, call out their name when they’re too far away?” Tam asks.

“No, not like that. You know, the—” Homura searches for the right word, “— _thing_ where there’s buttons all over it, and there are numbers on the buttons, and if somone has a phone there’s a number that you can use to push the buttons and talk to them on it? That?”

“I don’t think we have that—but by the Light, that sounds like it would make talking a whole lot easier if we did.”

“Oh.” _Well, I don’t think this is anywhere close to Mitakihara or any of the other big cities. And I know that you don’t get good service in places like this._

“You mentioned something about a girl you know,” says Tam. “If you’re alright with us asking questions…”

“I can tell you more about her if you need to ask questions. I’m okay with you asking me now.”

“Good.” Rand nods his head. “What’s your name?”

“Homura. Homura Akemi.”

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Where is your family?”

“…I don’t have one. I used to live in an orphanage, but ended up moving out to live on my own.”

“Why?”

“Health issues. I got sick a lot, and the doctor said that it would be better for me to change schools—when I started to get better, that was when I got to move out.”

Rand stares at her with a look that says, _What kind of doctor lets a child live on her own?_ Then he continues.

“Were you with anyone before you got lost?”

“Yes. There was this girl I was… very close to. Someone I care about a lot. But we were in a city right before this, then—” _I can’t tell them about Madoka, they won’t believe me_ “—I ended up here. I don’t know where she is now.”

“Is this the same girl you wanted to try calling from earlier?”

“Yes. Her name is Madoka. She’s the same age as me. I’ve known her for a very long time.”

“Could you tell us about what she looks like?”

“She has pink hair and eyes. She’s around the same age as me, but a little shorter.”

“Pink hair and eyes…” Rand mumbles to himself.

“I mean it. She really does. And I was with her right before I got lost. I don’t know what happened, we were in a city together, and now I’m here.”

_There was this girl I loved a lot,_ Homura wants to say. _And I kept trying to save her. Countless times. And every time she died and I failed. Until now, and I don’t know what happened._

But she says, “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t know where I am, and I have nowhere to stay. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Tam says gently. “It’s not your fault. You’re safe here.”

“I’m worried about Madoka. I hope she’s alright.”

“I don’t know your friend very well, but I hope so, too. For now, though, you can stay with us until we find a way to help you get back home.”

“Thank you.”

“We might have to go into Emond’s Field tomorrow to buy some supplies. I don’t want to leave you alone by yourself—I know you said you lived by yourself, but that’s too, too young and I don’t know how safe it would be to leave you alone especially when you’ve gotten hurt—so one of us can either stay here to keep an eye on you, or you can come with us.”

_Maybe I’ll find Madoka or the others in the village._ “I want to go with you tomorrow. I might find my friend there.”

“Ah! Good idea. Let us know if you see any of them in Emond’s Field and we might be able to sort this out. And maybe we can get you dresses that might fit you properly, too, if you need them.”

“I’m fine with wearing this, but thank you. Thank you very much.”

She steps up out of her chair, nearly tripping over the long blanket, and pulls Tam into a hug. She has no more tears, but the warmth of being in the presence of people who can take care of her is foreign. Alien. And not something she entirely wants to brush away.

“It’s going to be okay, Homura. I promise. We’ll find a way to help you,” says Tam.

That night, as Homura crawls onto the spare bed in the house and pulls the blanket over her, she believes Tam, and for once feels as though she can sleep peacefully for the first time in a very long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok for some clarification, this part takes place like... a feeeew days before the eye of the world. the magic system of wheel of time has been altered to fit the puella magi madoka magica universe, for reasons that will be further explained within the narrative. female channelers are puella magi, male channelers are puero magus. but you'll find out about that more as the story goes on - can't give away everything yet >:3
> 
> thanks for taking the time to read this! take care

**Author's Note:**

> hola it's lucia (previously known as angie but due to personal reasons i don't go by that name anymore)
> 
> anyways! i've been having this idea floating around in my head for a while, and i finally started to properly outline it. i think this version will be very different from the original, but i'm excited to write it all the same.
> 
> thank you for reading, especially you suhasini! i hope you all have a good day, and if not that it'll get better.


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